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NewsMeet the Vengosh Lab, learn more about its research focus, PhD students' experience in the lab and the opportunities the lab offers Duke students.
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NewsAs the world undergoes the great energy transition — from fossil fuels to alternative energy and batteries — rare earth metals are becoming more precious.
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NewsA new Duke University study finds that municipal waste incinerators' legacy of contamination could live on in urban soils.
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NewsMixing toxic coal ash into acid mine drainage may sound like an odd recipe for an environmental solution, but a new Duke University-led study finds that it can neutralize the drainage’s dangerously low pH and help reduce harmful impacts on downstream ecosystems—if you use the right type of ash. Using the wrong type of ash can create new contamination and not tame the drainage’s extreme acidity.
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NewsBy distinguishing between lead from modern sources and lead from pre-1970s vehicle exhaust fumes and leaded paint, the new test may be especially useful for assessing the hidden risks of legacy contamination.
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NewsClouds of smoke and ash from wildfires that ravaged Australia in 2019 and 2020 triggered widespread algal blooms in the Southern Ocean thousands of miles downwind to the east, a new Duke University-led study by an international team of scientists finds.
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NewsWarming waters along the Western Antarctic Peninsula have led to declines in the diversity and distribution of the region’s plankton population and its ability to absorb climate-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
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NewsHarnessing the power of artificial intelligence, satellites and field observations, Duke researchers have produced new estimates of how much photosynthesis and primary production – key components in the global carbon cycle – are occurring in Earth’s oceans, and how these processes may be changing in response to a changing climate.
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NewsThe proliferation of pits and ponds created in recent years by miners digging for small deposits of alluvial gold in Peru’s Amazon has dramatically altered the landscape and increased the risk of mercury exposure for indigenous communities and wildlife, a new study shows.
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NewsBy providing the first estimate of how much hydrogen is available to fuel microbial life in the sunless sub-seafloor crust beneath the Mid-Ocean Ridge (MOR), a new Duke University-led study sheds light on one of Earth’s least understood biospheres.
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NewsThe ratio of carbon isotopes in three common species of tuna has changed substantially since 2000, suggesting major shifts are taking place in phytoplankton populations that form the base of the ocean’s food web, a new international study finds.
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NewsA new study which combines measurements from nearly 1,400 drinking water wells across North Carolina estimates that more than half of the wells in the state’s central region contain levels of cancer-causing hexavalent chromium in excess of state safety standards.
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NewsWith the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) poised to loosen coal ash rules for dry onsite storage and large fill projects, a new study from Duke University finds that leaving those contaminants exposed may significantly heighten the risk of toxic contamination to nearby soil and waterways.
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NewsReducing fossil fuel emissions steadily over coming years will prevent millions of premature deaths and help avoid the worst of climate change without causing the large spike in short-term warming that some studies have predicted, new analysis by researchers at Duke University and the University of Leeds finds.
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NewsIn his newest book, Sea Level Rise: A Slow Tsunami on America’s Shores, Orrin Pilkey paints an eye-opening picture of the impacts sea level rise will have on the United States by the end of the 21st century.